Telemarketers for charities keep most of the Mass. take

Massachusetts residents are a generous lot when it comes to giving money — giving money, that is, to for-profit telemarketing companies.

Of the $266.6 million that Bay State donors gave last year to charity fundraising campaigns run by professional solicitation firms, those for-profit firms pocketed a whopping $175.7 million, nearly two-thirds of the donations.

The charities in whose names the millions were raised kept just under $91 million, about a third of the total, according to a new report from Attorney General Martha Coakley's office.

For example, Cancer Fund of America Inc., a Knoxville, Tenn., organization that sends out small baskets of donated sundries to cancer patients, raised $24,236 in one Massachusetts solicitation last year and kept just $1,832 of the money, less than 8 percent of the donations.

The overwhelming majority of the donations raised in Massachusetts went to the telemarketing outfit, Utah-based Corporations for Character, according to the AG's report.

While some charities defend the large portion of donations that are pocketed by for-profit solicitors as necessary expenses, the AG's report decried what it called the "unfortunate truth" that some so-called charity fundraising here "benefits principally the owners and staff of for-profit professional solicitors."

In Central Massachusetts, for example, the Ware Police Union hired a professional solicitor that raised $32,145 for the union from the public last year.

But the AG's report shows that the union got to keep less than a third of the total donations, while the solicitation firm, All Pro Productions Inc. of Marlboro, kept the rest.

Put another way, of every dollar donated to the police union in Ware, 68 cents went to All Pro Productions, according to the AG's report.

The Lunenburg Police Relief Association also used the Marlboro company for fundraising last year, with similar results.

In its case, the Lunenburg Relief Association's fundraising campaign last year produced $38,610 in donations, according to the AG's report. The association got $11,841, while All Pro kept the rest, according to the report.

All Pro Chief Executive Officer John Dumas didn't immediately return a message left at his Marlboro office on Friday. Representatives from the Ware Police Union and the Lunenburg Police Relief Association also couldn't be reached.

Another local organization on the AG's list is the Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Inc., which also used All Pro Productions for a fundraising campaign last year.

Thirteen years and more than $1.3 million in expenses later, the controversial effort to build a monument to the memory of six fallen Worcester firefighters continues to try to raise money, with its backers already having spent most of the donations collected over the years.

The Telegram & Gazette reported last year that the fund was approaching private charitable foundations asking for $825,000 to finally build the memorial near Salisbury Pond to honor the city firefighters killed in the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. building fire in 1999.

The proposed memorial is a series of six, 21-foot-tall stone columns.

Federal tax records show that nearly all of the $1.6 million raised by the fund has been spent on consultants, lawyers, public relations, administrative expenses and a master plan for 9 acres of city land between the pond and Grove Street, the T&G reported last year.

The group's latest fundraising effort, using All Pro Productions, produced $76,292 in contributions last year.

The Marlboro company kept $51,390 of the total contributions. The memorial fund got less than $25,000, according to the AG's report.

Representatives of the memorial fund didn't respond to a message seeking an interview on Friday.

The AG's report advised consumers to ask telemarketers, who may give the erroneous impression they are employees or volunteers calling from the named charity, what percentage of any donation will go directly to the charity. Professional solicitors are required to have that information and to disclose it on request.

The report also advises consumers to be wary of deceptive practices.

"Preying on the natural instinct to want to help in one's own community, the professional solicitor may lead potential donors to believe that the benefitting organization is a local charity, that a donation will benefit local individuals," the report warns.